Putin Did It: A high level British inquiry fingered Vladimir Putin as responsible for the 2018 death of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in 2018 in a “reckless” display of power that led to the death of an innocent woman, Reuters reported Thursday. Skripal was found along with his daughter Yulia slumped unconscious on a public bench in the southern English city of Salisbury in March 2018 after Novichok was applied to the front door handle of his nearby home by Russian agents. About four months later, mother-of-three Dawn Sturgess, 44, died from exposure to the poison after her partner found a counterfeit perfume bottle which Russian spies had used to smuggle the military-grade nerve agent into the country, the inquiry said. “I have concluded that the operation to assassinate Sergei Skripal must have been authorized at the highest level, by President Putin,” U.K. Supreme Court judge Anthony Hughes said in his report. “The evidence that this was a Russian state attack is overwhelming.” (NBC)
Kremlin on the Thames: Russia is smuggling suspected intelligence operatives into the U.K. on cargo ships, the U.K.-based independent i Paper reported. “Two suspected spies used such transport to enter Britain in the spring and summer, based on intelligence we have seen.”
Kremlin on the Oder: Moscow has upped the tempo of drone flights over Germany, especially naval bases, in what appears to be preparations for a land attack on a NATO member in the coming years, German officials are saying.